Editorial: Politics and charters

Monday

Sep 28, 2009 at 12:01 AMSep 28, 2009 at 12:53 PM

Decisions on charter school applications should be independent and professional, based on consistently applied criteria, without interference from governors, mayors, district school officials, engaged parents or special-interest groups.

Politics has been part of the state's charter school debate from the beginning. On Beacon Hill, proponents and opponents of these independently operated public schools have clashed constantly over caps and funding formulas. In cities and towns where charter schools have been proposed, school officials and school unions, often more interested in protecting their budgets and their power than in providing educational alternatives for children, have attempted to use political clout to stop charter schools.

But for most of the 15 years since Massachusetts established charter schools as part of its landmark Education Reform Act, the process of approving charter school applications has been free of political interference. Experts charged with examining charter school applications aren't allowed to take into consideration the opinions of state legislators or municipal officials. They are solely charged with weighing the soundness of the applicants' educational and financial plans, and the state Board of Education has almost always followed their recommendations.

The first exception came in 2008, when the state Board of Education rejected an application from Sabis International for a Brockton charter school, against the recommendation of the commissioner of education. The second came this year, when the BOE accepted the application for a Gloucester charter school the experts had recommended against.

An e-mail from Education Secretary Paul Reville confirms that politics had intruded into the charter approval process. For educational reasons, DOE experts had recommended against all three applications then before the board. In an e-mail to Education Commissioner Mitchell Chester obtained by the Gloucester Daily Times, Reville suggested rejecting all three could alienate influential charter school supporters and that the administration should "send at least one positive signal" by approving the Gloucester application.

This revelation of inappropriate pressure comes at a critical moment, when the Legislature is considering Gov. Deval Patrick's proposal to raise the state's cap on charter applications in the state's poorest-performing school districts. Patrick's bill would also limit those new applications to school operators with a successful track record in other places. The school proposed by Gloucester wouldn't have been affected either way by Patrick's bill, but the noise over Reville's ham-handed interference in the process threatens to derail a reform that is both sound and needed.

Decisions on charter school applications should be independent and professional, based on consistently applied criteria, without interference from governors, mayors, district school officials, engaged parents or special interest groups. Patrick, Reville and the state BOE should recommit themselves to that principle, as should activists on all sides of the charter school debate.

The MetroWest Daily News

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